


Celestial Navigation

by MildredMost



Category: Atlantis (UK TV)
Genre: Boats and Ships, M/M, Sea Monsters, Stars, Wrist Kissing
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-02-11
Updated: 2016-02-11
Packaged: 2018-05-19 19:35:43
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,058
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5978716
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MildredMost/pseuds/MildredMost
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When Icarus fell from the sky he hit his head, hard. So hard that he cannot quite remember what happened the night they fled Atlantis. He knows Pythagoras will never forgive him, yet he is constantly troubled by dreams of kissing him...</p>
            </blockquote>





	Celestial Navigation

**Author's Note:**

  * For [aurilly](https://archiveofourown.org/users/aurilly/gifts).



Icarus was watching Pythagoras navigate using the stars. 

Since their sea journey on the Argo began they had split the crew into watches to guard the ship all through the night. Icarus and Pythagoras were on first watch tonight. 

It wasn’t supposed to be their turn. Icarus had spent most of the day climbing in the sails - testing knots, mending tears.  He loved the thrill of being at the top of the mast; he found it exhilarating to be so high and free, with the wind rushing past him. Almost like flying again. So by the time they sat down for dinner, he was exhausted but content, and ready for sleep. 

They had been plotting their route across the sea at dinner, arguing good naturedly about where they should go ashore next. Hercules had been insistent all along that they avoid Crete because of the Sirens, but that was where they were headed now. “I’m warning you, their song is irresistible - I have heard it,” he said, “they are monsters enchanted to look like beautiful women, and they will sing to you the most heart-breaking song you have ever heard, and lure you into the water to love them. And it will be the last thing you ever hear.”   

Icarus, made bold by wine, had laughed and said ‘Well, then Pythagoras and I are quite safe,” before wishing he had never opened his idiotic mouth. Orpheus, one of the crew that Jason had recruited before they left, threw back his head and laughed. Pythagoras had not contradicted him, but had gone distractingly and beautifully pink from the hollow of his throat to the tips of his ears, and Hercules had rolled his eyes and said “you can keep the rest of us safe then,” and sent them up on deck into the night to watch for the monsters.   

So here they were, and here he was, watching Pythagoras. 

It was flat calm and there was little to do. It was obvious to Icarus that Pythagoras was having one of his ideas. He paced the deck back and forth, now squinting at the parchment he held in the pale moonlight, now staring up to the heavens. He spoke his thoughts out loud, and mostly to himself, although Icarus tried to follow. 

“...And Polaris is always so clear. So the journey could be much more efficient if we could just...yes. The moon, of course. The moon is the key. Now if I…of course I need to know what the dimensions are, but that can be solved with the instrument Daedalus and I... yes, yes. That’s it. And this constellation here…” 

Icarus lost the thread of the conversation - if you could call it that, when only one person spoke - and watched Pythagoras bend his head over his parchment, making measurements, scribbling calculations, happy as a lark. Icarus was tempted to drop a kiss onto the nape of his pale neck. But he stayed where he was, looking out to sea, as he knew his kiss would be unwelcome. 

And here lay all the trouble. Icarus was probably the most confused he’d been in his life. 

For one thing, Hercules, Ariadne, Jason, Cassandra...they all seemed happy he was with them. They were friendly and kind, and made no mention of his betrayal, even though Icarus still felt sick with shame every time he thought of it. For another, Pythagoras was acting as if their friendship was just as it was before. 

The trouble was, when he’d tumbled out of the sky on his father’s wings, he’d hit his head. Hard. So hard that he could not remember most of the night of their escape, and only snatches of the next day. The dreams he’d had over those days were clearer than his actual memories; so clear that they might almost be true. But he’d dreamed that Pythagoras had leant over him and dropped a tear onto his face, then kissed him so tenderly he felt his heart would burst with joy. And of course that could not have happened, because Pythagoras himself - honest, straightforward Pythagoras - had said that he would never forgive him. He certainly remembered that much. And shame rolled over him again when he remembered how he’d pleaded with Pythagoras, even tried to kiss him. No. He could not think of it. 

Anyway, dreams of kissing Pythagoras were far from unusual for Icarus, so he did his best to dismiss this one, however vivid. What he could not understand was why everyone was behaving as if he hadn’t broken his friendship with Pythagoras into tiny pieces. 

Pythagoras who was in front of him now, smiling. 

“I am boring you, again,” he was saying to him. 

“I am not bored,” Icarus said, dragging himself back to the moment.  “I just cannot follow your reasoning. I cannot keep up with the leaps and bounds your mind makes, my friend; I never could.” 

“And I cannot keep up with the leaps and bounds you make up in the top sails,” Pythagoras said. “I saw you there today and I do not know how you can do it. I would be terror-struck.” 

“It is not brave if you aren’t scared,” shrugged Icarus. But he could not help but smile a little that Pythagoras had paid him attention at all. “So tell me what you have dreamt up now.” 

Pythagoras’s eyes lit up. “It is a new way to navigate, Icarus, using the moon and stars. It is so very simple; I think it will work beautifully. You understand that the moon moves in a different way to the stars, so we can use that like a sun dial.” 

Pythagoras stood behind Icarus now, gesticulating with excitement. “And as you see the path of the moon can show us…look here, and here, at these constellations. Now when the moon first rose of course they were on the left, and now...” 

Icarus tilted back to see the stars, his head almost nestled under Pythagoras’s chin. 

“Oh,” he said, “I see it. So if we can know where the moon will be…” 

“And I have charted that already, of course, I spent a year doing it when I was fifteen,” said Pythagoras. 

“Well of course,” laughed Icarus. “Didn’t we all.” 

“Very funny. I used to have a lot of time on my hands,” said Pythagoras, “Before you and Jason came along and ruined all that.” 

“I am sorry for it,” said Icarus as lightly as he could. 

“Don’t be.” 

“So,” said Icarus, rushing to fill the silence, “With your lunar charts, and the stars and moon, all you need is the measuring tool my father and you worked upon. The...the quadrant I think?” 

“There you see, you have it exactly,” said Pythagoras in his low calm voice. He dropped his hand gently onto Icarus’s shoulder and left it there. 

It was the lightest of touches but Icarus could feel the blood singing in his ears from the desire ignited in him. 

He must resist of course. He would stay still, so very still, and Pythagoras would move away. He bit his lip and gripped the bulwark until his knuckles went white, but Pythagoras remained where he was. 

He would think of anything, anything else but Pythagoras standing just behind him, with his hand on him. Just inches away. He would not think about how if he turned his head, Pythagoras’s mouth would be _there_ , and how if he turned he could press his lips to that mouth, and his body to the whole lean length of him. 

_Perhaps, though - just perhaps..._

Icarus had just begun to turn, just begun to place his hand over Pythagoras’s, when the ocean around them exploded into bright white sound. 

It surged around and through them, vibrating with their heartbeats, bringing Icarus to tears with its melancholy. Nothing seemed worth anything, nothing but the song. 

“ _Oh,”_ he managed, wiping tears with the back of his hand. 

“The Sirens,” Pythagoras said, holding his hands over his ears. “We should have been keeping watch. We must have been distracted for half an hour at least.” 

The hatch thumped back then, and Jason emerged from below deck, utterly naked, moving as if he was sleepwalking. Icarus felt the hairs on the back of his neck stand up as the Siren song became more tempting, more heart-breaking at his arrival. Hercules followed, moving more slowly, tears on his face. 

“Help me,” Pythagoras said, sprinting towards Jason and Hercules. “We must secure them.” 

Luckily Hercules was still at the dreamy, passive stage when they got to him and managed to lash him to some rigging with little resistance and weigh him down with sailcloth. 

Jason was another story. he was incredibly strong and incredibly naked which made everything slippery and awkward, and the Siren song was driving him to madness. 

“Oh _Gods,”_ panted Icarus, just having had a handful of an interesting part of Jason that he really hadn’t wanted for the third time, “This is not how I wanted tonight to end.” 

“Just...grab him!” 

With a yell, Icarus launched himself onto Jason’s back, clapping his hands over the other man’s ears which earned them a few seconds reprieve. 

Thank the Gods Ariadne scrambled up on deck then, Cassandra in tow, knocked the legs out from under Jason with a kick. Both women then sat on him firmly. Icarus and Pythagoras stared. 

“What?” she said. “That’s how I always do it. He’s worse when he’s drunk.” 

“We have to seal the hatches,” Pythagoras said. “The crew will be driven to madness.” 

The other hatch flew open then, and Orpheus appeared. He seemed, like Icarus and Pythagoras, to be able to resist the music, though he was moved by it. 

“This is the song?” Orpheus said. “It is truly wonderful.” 

“Orpheus, close the hatch!” 

“Oh, yes. The technical term is to batten down the…” 

The Song rose to a ferocious level then but Orpheus only closed his eyes and drank it in. 

“Oh! It is beautiful,” he said. Orpheus loved music, Icarus knew. But he seemed transported by what he could hear now and Icarus held his breath in fear. 

Suddenly Orpheus opened his mouth and began to sing back. The song he was singing back to the Sirens was theirs, but he sang it so joyfully and with so much heart that the voices of the sea creatures began to falter, to disintegrate into ugly screeches.   

His voice rose and fell with the Siren call, but louder and more purely. Icarus felt the sadness that was tearing and ripping at his heart begin to ease. The loveliness of Orpheus’s song was almost harder for Icarus to listen to, contrasted with the ugly longing inside him. He felt exposed, as if everyone must be able to see within him to the unwanted love he harboured for Pythagoras. But Orpheus was working some mysterious magic and the sickly feeling of enchantment had left the air. So he listened on, tears drying on his cheeks. 

The sails bellied out with wind. 

“Quickly,” Pythagoras said, “We must steer ourselves away while we can.” 

Icarus leapt to help him. 

Orpheus sang on a little longer, as Hercules snapped out of his delirium and struggled out from his restraints and Jason slowly sat up. The wind had got up strongly, and before long the shrieks and wails of the Sirens were barely audible over the snap of the sails and the crash of waves against the prow. 

“I have lost my chorus,” Orpheus said with a smile. 

“Well,” said Hercules looking around at everyone. “What did I tell you?” He looked at Pythagoras and Icarus. “You let us drift right into them, you pair of fools.” 

“They could not have predicted them,” said Cassandra “After all, I did not.” 

“I am sorry,” Icarus said, always aware of his precarious position in this company of friends. “I will finish my watch with no further lapse, I assure you.” 

“I will finish it with you,” said Pythagoras. 

Hercules merely humphed then yawned, and Orpheus clapped him on the shoulder and pushed him amiably towards the hatch.  Ariadne stood up and Jason rolled over - Icarus quickly looked skywards - and they followed suit. Cassandra bade them goodnight with a shy smile and closed the hatch behind her. 

The strange wind had left them again and the sea had returned to the flat calm of before. 

Icarus was acutely aware of Pythagoras again. He felt utterly wrung out. The hypnotic song had not made him fall in love with the sirens, but it had exposed his own heart to himself, raw and uncompromising. He was still deeply in love, however well he could ignore it when he wasn’t exhausted. 

But that was his scar to bear. His father was alive, after all - he did not deserve anything more than that. 

Pythagoras was back to looking at the stars again, as if they all had not just been in terrible peril. He beckoned Icarus over to look at something with him and Icarus was so tired and distracted that he tripped over a coil of rope and staggered across the deck. 

Pythagoras caught him. 

“Are you alright?” he asked softly, holding Icarus’s upper arm with one hand and brushing his dark curls away from his face with the other. Icarus felt himself tremble. He gave a wriggle but Pythagoras did not release him. 

“Pythagoras, _please_ , you cannot.” 

“What is it?” said Pythagoras, his eyes searching Icarus’s face. 

I’m sorry,” Icarus said, pulling away from him and shrugging his hands away. “It is too much.” 

“Too...much?” 

Pythagoras seemed genuinely confused. Icarus felt almost exasperated. At Pythagoras, at everything. He could not keep it in. 

“My friend, you must know that I feel the same way about you that I always did.  I know it cannot be, and it is enough most days just to have your friendship, but this is...” Icarus paced the deck, not able to find the words. 

Pythagoras just stared. 

“It is so good of you and Jason and everyone to have taken me with you -  it has saved my life, I know that. And this after I almost sacrificed all of yours. I have such a huge debt to repay to you all. And because of that you see, I would do anything you asked of me. But we cannot...if you touch me, I…” he took a breath. He was making no sense but the heat of Pythagoras’s casual caress had spread like fire to every part of him and he could not think properly. “You must please spare me that.” 

“You do not want me to touch you?” said Pythagoras in a quiet voice. 

“No, I _do_ ,” Icarus almost shouted. Curse the Gods for all of this. “So much, I am quite desperate. That is my trouble. I know I have been unforgivable. I accept it. But I cannot control...I can’t help…” 

“But,” Pythagoras said, his eyes wide, “You must know you are forgiven? I forgave you utterly, the moment you fell out of the sky. Couldn’t you tell, when I…” 

“When you…” urged Icarus, his heart thudding almost out of his chest. “Pythagoras, tell me. I hit my head when I fell. My memory is not quite...” Pythagoras’s eyes went even rounder. 

“You don’t remember, do you?” he said. “That’s why you have not...oh.” He began to smile. “I thought it was because my kiss was not...good. I had not kissed anyone before, so I thought perhaps you did not…” 

“You kissed me,” said Icarus. He closed his eyes and put his hands over his face. “You did, didn’t you.” Yes, he could remember. A slight taste of blood in his mouth from hurting himself when he fell. Pythagoras leaning over him, his hands on his face. It all seemed to spring to life, he could feel it. He opened his eyes again. 

“But of course I remember. It is burned on me like a brand. Only I thought I had dreamt it,” he felt a huge smile burst out on his face. 

Pythagoras took Icarus’s hand in both of his. 

“I thought perhaps you had changed your mind,” he said, gently unbuckling a strap on Icarus’s leather wrist band. “That the reality was not as wonderful as imagination.” 

He opened the leather band a little way and pressed a kiss to the inside of Icarus’s wrist. 

Icarus could not have imagined anything more intimate. He felt the heat from the kiss spread through his whole body and felt dizzy from it. He managed to raise his eyes to Pythagoras’s and saw the desire and the nervousness and the affection, and half laughed with happiness. 

“Pythagoras,” he said.  “Please.” He ran his hands up Pythagoras’s chest, and Pythagoras lowered his mouth to his at last. 

And it was even more wonderful than the first time and not just because they were not in the middle of fleeing a city. Pythagoras had his hands in Icarus’s hair, his mouth warm and salt-tasting from the sea air, kissing him with a happy desperation that left Icarus barely able to stand. He pressed his body against Pythagoras, revelling at the gasp he gave and taking the opportunity to push his tongue into his mouth. Oh, he wanted to...to...but they could not - the watch, the… 

“Well this explains how we were almost sunk by Sirens,” said Hercules just beside them. Pythagoras broke away immediately, face reddening. 

Hercules rolled his eyes. “I have come to relieve you of your watch. Although I am not sure I will keep mine the same way.” 

Icarus laughed and Hercules pulled his face into a mock frown. 

“Get below decks, both of you. Go.” 

“Our watch is not technically finished until...” 

“Pythagoras. You know when you asked me what you were doing wrong with Icarus? This is it. Take him below decks and stop standing around here arguing with me, you silly fool.” 

Icarus tugged Pythagoras by the hand and led him away. 

“You asked _Hercules…”_ he began, unable to keep from grinning. 

“I know, I know. I was quite desperate,” said Pythagoras. 

Icarus laughed and kissed him, and vowed to himself that he would make Pythagoras feel desperate in a very very different way before the night was through.


End file.
